Composer is a PHP dependency manager. Packagist is a directory of available packages for Composer. Packages can be anything from single classes to complete frameworks.
You'll notice in the Elefant installation steps that we recommend using Composer to install Elefant itself!
Composer packages live in Elefant's lib/vendor folder. To install a new package, you
can either edit the composer.json file and add the packages to the require block,
then run:
$ php composer.phar install
Or you can specify the package itself on the command line, and Composer will add it to
your composer.json file automatically:
$ php composer.phar require vendor/package-name
Elefant's own autoloader will play nice with any subsequently loaded autoloader. To add
the Composer autoloader to your site, create a file named bootstrap.php in the root
of your site with the following contents:
<?php
require 'lib/vendor/autoload.php';
?>
Now you should be able to autoload your installed Composer packages. For example, if you've installed the merk/Dough package, the following handler code should work:
<?php // apps/test/handlers/dough.php
use Dough\Money\Money;
$money = new Money (5.75);
$money = $money->tmes (1.12);
echo $money->getAmount ();
?>
Many of Elefant's own apps and themes can be installed via Composer. These will be
correctly installed into the apps or layouts folders, respectively, instead of
the lib/vendor folder for regular Composer packages.
For example, you can install the Form Builder app like this:
$ php composer.phar require elefant/app-form
Click here for a full list of Elefant's apps and themes available through Composer.
Updating your packages via Composer is as easy as this:
$ php composer.phar update
This will update all Composer-installed packages, apps, and themes to the latest release
based on the version specified in your composer.json file.
Click here for more info about package versioning.
Next: Sharing your apps